


say you love me

by emmamay



Series: i want to be with you everywhere [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Gap Filler, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, say you love me by fleetwood mac, they just have to reassure one another
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26739325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmamay/pseuds/emmamay
Summary: At seven years old, Eddie made a vow with himself. Sewed Richie up like a patchwork pieced pokey-eyed teddy bear with blue bandaids and two tiny kisses to the tatter battered knocked knees and told the Moon he’d never leave Richie’s side, for as long as they lived under the stars.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: i want to be with you everywhere [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943143
Comments: 7
Kudos: 32





	say you love me

**Author's Note:**

> this is a gap filler piece from eddie’s POV, set during songbird (the first part of the series!), just after the kitchen scene. mavis is still a teeny little baby. he and richie’s relationship is still very much new. he’s just trying to figure it all out.

At seven years old, Eddie made a vow with himself. Sewed Richie up like a patchwork pieced pokey-eyed teddy bear with blue bandaids and two tiny kisses to the tatter battered knocked knees and told the Moon he’d never leave Richie’s side, for as long as they lived under the stars.

And it was never all that heady hard. They swept leapt through childhood with locked pinkies and sunburned freckles that fell through Summertime smiles. Biked all around Bassey Park and cycled circles round one another over and over, again and again.

Come nose pimples and back dimples and dusty hairy knees, Eddie’s entire high school experience was a steady soul-shredding stream of _Look at me. Please. Look at me. I want you to look at me. I need you to look at me. Why aren’t you looking?_

He’d clatter and caterwaul and cartwheel all around, vying and dying for Richie’s attention and affection. 

Richie was elaborate and obnoxious in his endeavours. Smoosh mooch smooches straight to Eddie’s burned-up blush plush cheeks, wacky tacky Valentine’s Day cards, heart doodle drawn paper airplanes in science class, nifty nicknames and shifty mind-games; wishes smoothed over and smothered in jokes. Eddie’s heart on the line every time. His head was pretty pluck stuck positive Richie was kidding, but it sure as hellbent heck was better than nothing. 

But then he’d slip trip bang splat into moments he was sure Richie was the ethereal embodiment of nothing but truth. Stolen glances, and whispered walks instead of poppy hoppy prances. The times he’d tie a forget-me-not red string, right round his pinky finger, in infinite affinities of _I won’t forget my promise, Richie. I’m gonna love you forever. I swear it. And I know you’re gonna love me too._

When Mavis came along, duckling yellow wool wrapped and singing the same songs as Richie, all Eddie had to do was add her to his original vow. String strung simple. She was another mystically magic piece of Richie, the wooziest wonder whirl of a pretty preppy puzzle, and Eddie always did love him in his entirety. But as time tick-tocked, quick on it’s honeysuckle rumble-chuckle whimsical whirring clock, Mavis became her own person entirely. Not solely a sweet starry extension of Richie, but someone new, with that something more, to overwhelmingly, unconditionally, total-wholeheartedly adore. 

On nights Rich was shacked up at a shift at the store, they’d really get to know each other, right down to the core. Mavis’ hands, just lumpy lark leg little things, would map out his face in a dandelion wish kiss gentle trace. She’d tug teeny on his pinkies and blink buggy brown moon-meddled eyes up at him. She made it impossible not to dote on every darling inch of her. 

She’d tickle-touch giggle at Eddie, and make grubby grabby hands for him when he came home from work. She was extraordinarily enamoured by him. It was enchanting. She’d calm for him, quiet and cuddled close, like she was in on the promise. Like she knew he was going to keep her safe. 

And watching Richie with his daughter, it was like being swooped up all melty in the milky way. Blanketed in galaxies, sung to slumber by the sun. Eddie was very well versed in how Richie loved. Hearty hard, loud and bright and brass. That’s who his soul implored him to be, and that way he remained, but he was _so_ gingerly gentle, spellbindingly soft, and caring kind, to this tiny teeny tweety-pie. 

Their big eyes match, and their bubble bounce beating hearts. Smiles that shake your soul, make you feel like you could hold the whole world in your hands, if you wanted to. 

It makes Eddie‘s heart batter bounce big against his chest, how badly he adores it. How madly in love he is. 

Which is why, when Mavis calls _Eddie_ ‘Dadda’, and Richie tells him he loves him too, Eddie is faced with unbridled elation, yet unyielding dread-dipped doubt.

It’s late and it’s sound and almost-silent and he kisses him, and Rich really actually kisses back. Says he doesn’t want to be scared anymore. Calls them a _family_. 

And you can golly gosh butter soft bet that that’s all Eddie’s heart has ever wanted, but he’s still that small toy of a boy he always was, and Richie might not be, but Eddie’s _scared_. That it’s too pure, and shiny new, and dream-dunked good to be true. 

“You love me, right? You told me you love me.” He slip soars up to face Richie in his bed. They’ve slept side by side there together since they were little tikes riding bikes and skip skimming stones at the quarry. But it’s different now. The blankets are weighing Eddie down. Richie’s hand is still holding his, but it’s got a different feel. He twists it around in his own to get a better grasp.

“Eddie, yes. Of course I love you. So much.” Mavis is snoozing a dreamy doozy woo in the blankets in the bassinet in the corner, snoring that breathy grunting baby way. Richie’s scratch static record player switches songs and his brows flip from funny frumpy incredulous to wary wondering worry. 

Eddie squashes his fingers up in a bundle with his own, rattles them up and down. “Okay, cool, good—I mean, I know that. But. Have you always loved me? The way I mean. Like, _in_ love. Or, you know, just since Mavis? Is it—are you—” He stammers his way through shimmy shakes and a heartbeat like an earthquake. 

Richie doesn’t do mad. Just sad. Punched-in-the-gut sad. Never mad, he never could be. His heart is simply too kind. “Are you suggesting I _only_ love you because of Mavis?”

Such a devastated face, holding full moons in his eyes. Like it’s normal, like that’s how everybody looks. Like he’s not a million meteor showers. Like his tears aren’t stardust and glitter gold. Like just seeing him this way, even for a moment, isn’t shatter batter breaking Eddie’s heart. 

“No! I—Maybe?” Eddie trembles a half head tilt, fingers scavenge scouring slippy over Richie’s forearms, up his gaping sleeves, holding his bony elbows in his clammy palms. “I don’t know. I know you love me, Rich. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to make sense of all of this.”

“No,” Richie’s hands land over the plains of Eddie’s thighs. His fingers squeeze his knees. He looks him alive in the eye. “No. That’s okay. That’s fine. Don’t apologise.” His wrists touch brush up past Eddie’s chest, mellow moving to hold him gentle under the jaw. “I understand, Eds. I understand, Eddie.”

Eddie feels a pitter patter peck the side of his lip and trickle tickle down to his chin before he even knows that he is crying. “I _am_ sorry, Rich. I just love you so much. Both of you.” He’s nibble niggle gnawing on the fleshy insides of his flushy cheeks, where Richie’s spindle fingers lie, brushing baby-soft bye-byes to his tears. “I’m so badly, madly in love with you, it hurts.”

He doesn’t want if-the-shoe-fits. He wants to be the one. He’s got a soulmate string suffocating his pinky finger, he wants to know there’s one on Richie’s too. 

He’ll give every gutsy thing he’s got. But he only has so much.

“Eddie, oh my gosh, I am so in love with you.” Richie’s eyes widen and whirl like a spinning-top. “If you’re not sure, about the being a family, I know it’s a lot. Gosh, we’re _eighteen_ , you—you don’t have to want this. I—“

“Rich. Rich, _no_. Richie, I want this. I want it so bad. So bad I don’t even think you understand, _that’s why_ I wanted to talk about it.” Eddie’s head held still sound in place by Richie’s hands, he strokes his own round and over and through Rich’s surly curls. From the nape of his neck all the way up round his rash ruddy blush flushed ears. 

“Eddie, I’m so sorry. I just didn’t want you to change your mind. ‘Cause I don’t know what I’d do without you. Even before Mavis. Way, way before. Losing you would—I just,”

“I know, Rich.” Richie’s getting a little panic manic monkey frantic, head shaking dazey crazy. Eddie sooth smooth strokes tufty tendrils back from his forehead, palm pressing into his skin.

“I’m so in love with you, Eddie. I can’t remember a time I wasn’t. You and that smile like all the stars.” Richie’s thumb drums against the pink puff of Eddie’s pouty peach bottom lip. “And how you always just know. You know where to go, and what to do. No matter what happens, Eds, I know that if I’ve got you, I’m gonna be just fine.” His bushy brown brows knit knot together, eyes flash falling to look at their laps. “And—and maybe that’s selfish. To think I’ll just always get to have you—”

“ _No_ , sweetheart.” Eddie cuddle coos, swift swiping the back of his hand round up Richie’s splotchy cheeks, tilting his chin up to look him in the eye. “Never. You’re not selfish. That’s exactly how I feel about you.”

“Man, I still can’t even—can’t even wrap my head around that.” The Moon himself, who glows in the deepest dark, cannot believe that Eddie could ever feel such a way about him. “Eddie, I love you _so_ much.”

He’s everything. He’s all Eddie’s ever known _to_ love. Whispered wish of a dream too big for Earth. “I know, baby.” Eddie kisses the sunny side of his nose.

Richie’s lips quirk quick. He licks the shy smile away and squash squeezes Eddie’s arms. “You do? You’re sure you do?” He looks up through butter flutter lashes with those big baby browns, right into Eddie’s soul.

“I’m sure. I _love_ you.” His nails etch-a-sketch scratch static patterns into patches of Richie’s hair at either side of his hazy head. “When Mavie came home, what did I say?”

“ _‘Gosh, this kid knows how to poop’_?” Richie’s face falls into a tilt far into Eddie’s left palm.

He lifts Rich’s head back up, stares at him as silly kidding deadpan as he can. “Very funny.”

Richie giggles trilly treat sweet. Blinks at Eddie. Softens. “That we were never going to be alone.”

Eddie’s nod slips into a soft smiled shake. “Never.” He pecks at Richie’s cherry cheeks, smooches his cupid’s bow all the way up to the tip of his nose then the space between his chocolate brown brows. “It’s the three of us. Always.”

Richie slithers in between his legs. They shift shuffle snuggle up under the covers and Eddie poke peeks his head up over a bunny snuggie by Mavis’ cheek to check on her. She’s breathing mellow and mild and smiling a teeny tug in her slumber.

The universe begun a cyan blue ball. Wooly and yarn-wrung and tangible. Humans exist to embroider their patterns, to then touch, and to feel, and to simply be. In every example, every creation, Eddie’s lie alongside Richie’s. Knitted together endlessly in string-strung strong knots. Mavis’ are ditty dots, only just beginning. Something beautiful to be. All of them, together.

Richie goodnight-kisses his collar bones touchy tenderly and holds his hand close and breathes steady soft into his neck, light body slowly laying limp.

It’s ten toes in the sand; sunset by the sea. It’s how your soul glows from the inside out on your birthday, and the feeling of Christmas Eve. Eddie knows his way around the Tozier’s house like the back of his clam palmed hands, has for a long while. But here, tonight, it truly feels like coming home.

**Author's Note:**

> big lovely thank you hugs to the wonderful anonymous reader who’s questions after warm ways really made me think about eddie’s doubts and fears in the beginning! i wanted to write a little something from him and they prompted me in exactly the direction i feel i needed to go. 
> 
> thank you for all the lovely love on songbird and warm ways, and for being here, reading more! my heart truly hopes that yours enjoyed and adored and is very happy. <3


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